Sweet

Mason, so far, has nothing but love for his new little brother. If Lincoln is fussing he immediately springs into action seeking out remedies - alerting me and offering tools such as diaper rash ointment, a pacifier, the boppy pillow, Lincoln's blanket, etc. It is adorable! He loves to kiss on him, pat/rub his back, and wants to greet him first thing in the morning. It melts my heart! :)

Stroller Love

My splurge for baby #2 since he is the same gender as #1: my stroller.

Cost? rather not say :)

Regrets? none!

I bought it in the spring and have been quite pleased with it as a single stroller all summer

(I use my stroller daily... well, at least 5 days of the week).

This week I have been able to test out its double-stroller awesomeness: heck yeah, it is amazing!

Love love love it!

See the two configurations for baby/toddler below (it will also carry two bigger kids). Also note the look of sheer glee on Mason's face. He loves it too.

Happy traveling!

Lincoln David

And here... ladies and gentlemen... is my book. It IS for my record keeping after all, not to mention I am often long winded with stories, so here we go! :)

Contractions were getting old. REALLY old. On Wednesday evening when I talked to my Mom I told her they had started again and she asked if I was timing them… well, of course not! I had been having contractions on and off for days and would have lost my mind if I had been timing them – in fact, I was working as hard as I could to completely ignore them. For whatever reason though, I decided to watch the clock for a bit. Lo and behold, at that point they were 7-8 minutes apart consistently. Surprise! However, since I hadn’t timed any of the others, I didn’t know how much value to put into that knowledge. After putting Mason to bed I hopped in the bathtub to try to relax and see where that would take me… they just continued slow and steady. I then went to bed, frustrated, tired, and figuring they would be going away within hours as they had been for days.

The contractions kept coming and I kept my eyes shut and tried to ignore them. I finally decided to peek at the clock… 2:30 AM. My thought: ONLY 2:30?!?! It felt like it should have been nearly 5 or 6! I realized these contractions must have been keeping super regular. I then timed a handful and found them to be 5 minutes apart. I woke Matt up at 3 AM, telling him “this might be it…”, at which point he started timing them for me. We went to 4 minutes apart within 30 minutes and at that point we both agreed we needed to hit the road. I really didn’t want to be wrong and too eager to leave since other people had to be involved to take care of Mason for us – but we also didn’t want to miss our window of time because I had tested positive for Group B Strep and needed two rounds of antibiotics before delivering to reduce risk. So, off we went!

We arrived to the hospital around 4:30 AM and I told the nurse I needed to check in at which point she asked if I was being induced that day. “Oh, no, I am in labor… *Smile*” I think they thought I was crazy. A huge difference between this labor and Mason’s was NO BACK LABOR! In between contractions I felt like myself and could communicate – it was sooo great. They checked me and found I was at a 4 and checked me 45 minutes later and I was at 5. We were there to stay!

I ended up with a FABULOUS nurse (shift change at 6 AM)– for whom I am so, so grateful. When I asked my first nurse for some water she gave me stinking ice chips saying, “sorry, you can only have these when you’re in active labor”. Yeah, yeah. My second nurse slipped me apple juice J She had 4 children – two with an epidural and two without, the most recent without and only 3 months prior. When the contractions were back to back at 8 cm she pushed on my knees while instructing Matt to push on my back, trying to relieve some of the discomfort. She also massaged my feet and worked on a pressure point found there to try to give me some comfort. How about that for going above and beyond?? I also labored in their huge, awesome Jacuzzi bathtub for a little over an hour.

I hit a 6 pretty quick… and then stalled at a 6 for several hours. Lame-o! I have no idea what was going on, but I finally got to a seven maybe 3 hours later (time is a little hazy at this point). When I got to an 8 they told my doctor to hurry over and at that point, as mentioned earlier, my contractions became never ending. Not totally fun. When Dr. Savage arrived I was at 9 and she asked if I was ready for her to break my water and I said, “yes, lets get this show on the road!”. She explained it would make things go quicker, but how much quicker was up to my body. She broke my water… I had one contraction… and went into pushing mode. Talk about FAST! She then asked how I wanted to deliver, since I had mentioned wanting a different position than flat-on-your-back – my response? “I don’t care, whatever is the fastest!” Can you tell how I was feeling??? Everyone chuckled and my doctor said, “I am pretty sure it’ll be fast regardless of how we do it.” So, since I was already laying on my side, I declared, “then this is how I’m doing it!” With a great team around me, I pushed through two contractions in less than 5 minutes and gave birth to beautiful, perfect 8 lb 4 oz Lincoln David at 1:02 PM on Thursday, August 5th. I had two stitches internally and have recovered so fast – I am so grateful! I feel GREAT! It probably doesn’t hurt that I was so miserable the last few weeks, particularly the last week, of my pregnancy – the comparison of how I feel then and now is drastic.

With Mason he was wisked away to the NICU and I didn’t see him until 5 hours later so this experience with Lincoln was completely new and different. He was immediately placed on me and left there and wasn’t ever taken from us (even when they bathed him, the nurse brought a cart to our room and did it right there with us – several hours later). It was so wonderful to have that time to bond as a family and meet our new little one!

So, now we’re home and our family of three has become a family of four! It is unreal and at the same time so natural to have Lincoln with us. We love our little guy!

Baby on the mind (written 8/4)

Katie made me laugh pretty hard with her last two comments on here -- she noted that I first titled a post "water water everywhere" followed by "child labor" -- water, labor? Apparently I am subconsciously inserting child birth into all aspects of my life. ha!

And yet, here I am, 39.5 weeks with large amounts of false labor and still with a bun in the oven! The last two nights I have started contracting as soon as I've laid down and continued to do so for several hours, only to have it finally subside sometime mid-nights sleep. Which has meant... not much sleep. I never had any braxton hicks let alone false labor with Mason, so this is a whole new experience. Luckily I haven't been making any mad dashes to the hospital, but I am definitely eager to get this show on the road.

(I planned to insert a recent picture here...)

Child Labor

Eureka!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before!

Mason has been throwing away lint and dryer sheets for me for some time now... but, thanks to front loading machines, he can also easily switch laundry for me! Here is a short clip of his skills. I hope his desire to help continues on for a long, long time!

Don't mind the exhaustion you (I can) hear in my voice.... Lincoln has got to come out soon.

(a post about that is coming...)

Water water everywhere

...no good reason for this post except that I like this picture! We have had so many fun days of water parks/splash parks/kiddie pools this summer... I don't want them to ever end. This is from a local public pool (quite nice and fancy for a public pool!) and Mason absolutely loved this slide to pieces. I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of my maternity suit!

Mmmmm, flour

We are currently Webelo leaders (cub scouts - so fun!) and the other week we played "snowy mountain" as part of the activity -- whoever causes the flour mountain to collapse has to retrieve the chocolate chip with hands behind back. Can you tell who was a little too cocky when cutting away at the flour dome? Priceless!